The images went viral and regularly appear on social media, in
blog posts, and memes.

However, as fun as the photos are, they have more or less ruined
Slater's life. He is now basically broke after being dragged
through the courts for more than five years, and wants to give up
photography forever.

Where the story began

The legal dispute began in 2012 when Wikimedia Commons uploaded Slater's
photos as royalty free images. Slater requested the website
either pay for the photos or remove them. Wikimedia Commons
refused. The site said Slater owned no copyright due to the
monkey pressing the shutter itself.

"I made £2,000 [for that picture] in the first year after it was
taken," he said. "After it went on Wikipedia all interest in
buying it went. It's hard to put a figure on it but I reckon I've
lost £10,000 or more in income. It's killing my business."

To make matters worse, animal rights activists
Peta also got involved in 2015, and said all proceeds from
the photos should benefit the monkey. A court in San Francisco
disagreed in 2016, and ruled in Slater's favour that copyright
protection could not be applied to the animal.

However, this meant that there was legally no copyright licence
on the photographs at all, and the pictures remain in the public
domain.

This still wasn't good enough for Peta, which challenged the ruling last year,
saying that the monkey — which they named Naruto — was the author
of the works "in every practical (and definitional) sense." The
group appealed to the ninth circuit court of appeals, which heard
oral arguments last week.

"Had the monkey selfies been made by a human using Slater's
unattended camera, that human would undisputedly be declared the
author and copyright owner of the photographs," Peta said in
appeal papers. "Nothing in the Copyright Act limits its
application to human authors… protection under the Copyright Act
does not depend on the humanity of the author, but on the
originality of the work itself."

PETA believes that society has a moral imperative to advance and amend the law to recognize animals’ rights. https://t.co/A9XJwUYZiZ

The rights of
contention in this case range from the complicated to the
downright bizarre. The court must decide whether Peta has a close
enough relationship with Naruto to represent him in court, what
the value would be to provide a community of macaques with a
written notice of copyright, and whether Naruto is actually
losing out by not being the formal copyright-holder.

"There's no case that suggests that the copyright infringement
itself is injury," said Judge N Randy Smith. "What's your injury?
There's no way to acquire or hold some money, which the copyright
would give. There's no loss as to reputation. There's not even
any allegation that the copyright could have benefited somehow
Naruto."

There's also the question over whether Peta has identified the
correct monkey. Slater claims the macaque in the photograph is a
female, and it a completely different age to the six-year-old
Naruto Peta is representing.

"I'm bewildered at the American court system," Slater told the
Guardian. "Surely it matters that the right monkey is suing
me."

Too broke to go to court

Slater couldn't attend the latest court case, which started last
week, because he couldn't afford the flight to America. He's also
been financially drained by legal fees, is still in debt to his
lawyers, and has no real income from the photo that is all over
the internet. He can't even afford new camera equipment.

The intention of the photographs was always good, he has said.
Slater has been a conservation photographer for a long time, and
says that raising awareness for endangered species has always
been a priority. Crested black macaques are critically
endangered, and there are only a few thousand left in the
wild.

"Photographing and publicising their plight was the main driver
when I visited the island," Slater says on his website. "Not only
did I raise money for the conservation project, through canvas
sales kindly donated by Picanova and direct print sales, but I
helped the group to promote a new code of ethics when visiting
these macaques in Sulawesi."

On ITV's "This Morning" on Monday, Slater said he would have
worked closely with Peta on this issue to come to an agreement
about funding the macaques, but the group chose not to get in
contact before they brought the case against him.